Banners of Liberty
The battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17th, 1775, painted by J. Trumbull circa 1840; on stone by A. Hoffy. The print shows British and American soldiers in hand-to-hand combat during the Battle of Bunker Hill, including early Colonial martial banners. LOC LC-DIG-pga-00085
With nearly 2.5 million (1,227,890 Confederate and 2,128,948 Union) serving in the Civil War, and the much more prevalent availability of silks as the U.S. was a Pacific nation at the time, thousands of 1860s vintage regimental battle flags and ensigns survive, some in amazing condition. Practically every medium-sized military or veterans’ museum East of the Mississippi has a collection of martial CW flags, while hundreds more are in private hands. The Michigan History Center alone has 240 flags from the conflict.
The same cannot be said of the Revolutionary War.
Only an estimated 231,000 men served in the Continental Army throughout the war’s duration and the Army’s size never exceeded 48,000 at any time during the 1775-1783 conflict. Even those numbers are probably inflated as men often enlisted numerous for short period in assorted units and their names were frequently misspelled or abbreviated so its a high likelihood that those 231,000 should be trimmed down.
Plus, silk was rare in the colonies in the 1770s.
This means that today, only an estimated 30 or so unit flags from the War of Independence endure. Even these are widely distributed in personal, private, and public collections, with even the latter often locked away in archives and not on public display.
That’s what makes the new Banners of Liberty exhibit at the Museum of the American Revolution, which kicked off last week, important.
They have assembled more than half of the known American Colonial unit flags known to still exist, most of which have not in the same vicinity to each other since Washington’s Army was disbanded.
They include Washington’s Headquarters Flag, his own personal standard; as well as the flag of Pulaski’s Legion, the 2nd Regiment of Light Dragoons, that of the 8th Virginia Regiment, the banner of the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Associators, and the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment.
Pulaski’s Legion
The exhibit runs through August, at which point the banners will return to their respective homes across the country, perhaps never to be assembled again. So if in Philly at any time this summer…